Infinite Random
by SeanyOB
Summary: Over 6 billion people caught a glimpse of the future. Here are just a few of their stories.
1. Two Minute Fix

**FlashForward Fan Fiction - Two Minute Fix**

Nine years ago the view from Doctor Spencer Monroe's office was a thing of beauty. The L-shaped corner workspace that overlooked the atrium brought him peace. The view was one of the very few perks Spencer received for taking on such a grueling job.

After loading the bookcase with what he considered vital reading material, Spencer strategically placed his over-sized side chair at the perfect angle to overlook the courtyard. From the third story, just the tips of the trees were viewable, but it was good enough for the naturalist in him.

Now just a day after the blackouts, Spencer could find no solace in his vantage point. The usual chirping of birds was replaced by silence. Claustrophobic patients used to escape the dense walls, retreating to the ample refugee. On this day they are forced to stay inside, shades drawn. Today orderlies are tasked with cleaning up the dozens of dead birds scattered about the foliage.

A deep knock resounded from the oak door. While the thick door keeps out undesired sound, a fist thudding on the portal to what many consider "doom" always startles Dr. Monroe, even after nine years.

"Come in." Monroe waited a brief moment, adding a single foot tap to his impatience. Something else he constantly forgot about the monstrous door: not only does it keep sound out, it keeps those outside from hearing the conversations within.

Monroe swung the door open, revealing an overweight and disheveled patient. Aldridge entered the room like he always did, quickly and without regard to Dr. Monroe's cordial greeting. After the first two years, Spencer decided to forgo the usually pleasantries and allow Aldridge to sit where ever he felt comfortable.

The choices for accommodations were bountiful; a lounge chair, a pair of table chairs overlooking the atrium, a maroon-leather couch adjacent to Monroe's favorite side-chair. On one occasion Monroe even let Aldridge sit behind his desk while Dr. Monroe sat in the patients seat. Today was unlike all others.

Aldridge entered briskly, knocking shoulders with Monroe as he passed. By the time that Monroe recovered from the bump and closed the door, he was taken aback to find Aldridge in the only seat he wasn't allowed.

Dr. Monroe's charcoal Allen-Edmonds knocked against the leg of his side chair. "You know better." His thick voice delivered an underlined message - _Move or I'll move you_.

"It's a special occasion, Doc." Aldridge pursed his lips, countering with his own message - _I ain't movin'_.

"What's the special occasion?" Spencer fought the urge to toss Aldridge through the plate glass window and into the courtyard. After all, the orderlies already had brooms and dustpans posed for cleanup.

"I suspect you won't be seeing me much longer."

"I've heard that before." Six years ago when Aldridge was 14, the sweet-faced teenager arrived home in time to witness the brutal stabbing of his mother in their kitchen. With no other family and evaluated as too high a risk to enter foster care, Aldridge entered a New York state ran psychiatric center.

Two years, half-a-dozen hospitals, and without a single word being uttered by the catatonic Aldridge, Monroe petitioned Royster Care Center to take in the struggling teenage boy.

Within less than six weeks, Dr. Monroe had broken through and managed to get Aldridge to start speaking again. The duo made enough of an improvement that on Aldridge's 18th birthday he passed the adult psychiatric exam and was free to leave.

Still suffering from horrible nightmares and the occasional mental lapse, Aldridge decided to check back into Royster after just a week. Using the massive inheritance he gained after his mother's death, Aldridge found the unchanging environment of the hospital comforting.

"I mean it this time, Spence."

"I'm allowing you to break one of my rules by sitting in my favorite chair. Don't break a second rule. You know my name is Dr. Monroe."

"In my vision I wasn't here." Aldridge leaned forward in his chair, excited for possibly the first time in six years. "There's a world out there that I'm missing out on."

"What do you think you're missing? A girlfriend? Children?"

"A job!" Aldridge's exuberance with the mundane brought a quick chuckle out of Monroe.

"What job would take you from our fine establishment?"

"I'm gonna be a chef, at some fancy restaurant."

"Which restaurant?"

Tilting his head back and staring momentarily at the ceiling, Aldridge was giving deep thought to which restaurant was in his vision.

"I don't know," Aldridge finally interjected. "There was fancy writing, like French or something. It doesn't really matter. The fact that I was a chef was enough. Maybe Cafe Boulud, or the Porter House, or Apple Bee's. You know, something fancy."

Aldridge's carefree attitude changed in an instant as his facial expression turned to earnest.

"Don't you get it, Doc? In two minutes more people were cured than all the shrinks in the entire world could help in their collective lifetimes."


	2. Patience

**FlashForward Fan Fiction - Patience**

SYNOPSIS: Patience Morneau works hidden, several stories below the legendary Louvre Museum. Patience recreates the world's most famous paintings to be put on display in the galleries above. Patience's vision is a beautiful one for her - she is attending her own exhibit in Los Angeles. The odd part is everyone loves her paintings, though she feels they are the worst things she's ever painted. Nevertheless, Patience is struck into action, quitting her job and moving to the United States.

Patience Morneau tilted her head, contemplating how to fix her new masterpiece. Then again, all her paintings are considered masterpieces. Thirty feet below the legendary Louvre Museum, Patience has the secret job of recreating the worlds most famous paintings.

The Louvre's curators were a strange bunch no doubt. They took their love of art and paranoia to an entirely new level. In fear of the paintings being stolen, they hired Patience to privately recreate the paintings.

For the first time Patience was to reproduce a painting for another museum. Five years ago robbers had managed to steal Edvard Munch's most famous painting, The Scream. Two years later it was recovered but not without damage done.

Not only did Patience have to paint one of her favorite pieces of art, she had to intentionally reproduce the flaws and stains that the robbers had left. She was working on the highlights of the wavy sky when the blackout occurred. A custard colored streak whisks vertically from the clouds, curving gracefully around the ghost-faced man and off the bottom edge of the canvas.

"Oh sad alien man, what will become of us?" Like always, the painting was speechless. "Did your vision of the future make you scream?"

Removing the canvas from its easel, Patience carelessly tossed it to the ground. She then placed an identical sized blank canvas next to the original Scream. Not a single time in the last 25 years had Patience needed to start over. Not a single error.

Arguably the only mistake Patience had made was overworking. She often would spend day after day in the dank basement. A fold-out couch served as a resting places, often for up to a week at a time. Her husband had no gripes, he had left over more than a decade ago.

Was it he who had a part in her vision? It was curious that she saw herself in Los Angeles, the city where her estranged husband had fled to after their failed marriage.

Six months from now Patience saw herself at her first exclusive art exhibit which featured her original works. The gallery was as crowded with paintings as it was with guests.

A leg kicked up on a wall, Patience stood unflappable in the middle of the gallery, taking all the comments and judgements on her work.

An arrogant man, half the age of Patience demonstrated the shrewdness she expected from such a crowd. Peering through his vintage Andy Warhol glasses, the pompous man tilted his plaid drivers hat upward and began scrutinizing Patience's work.

A smile spread wide across Patience's face. Having her work viewed was enough of an accomplishment.

Back in the basement, brushes ablaze, Patience broke from her normal monotonous work and for the first time since college she created a work of absolute horror.

The abstract, purposely asymmetrical painting bleed from the canvas. The hues in such stark contrast that even a rainbow itself would cry over the appalling gamut.

Never had she painted something so ugly, so horrendous, so intimately Patience.


	3. These Things

**FlashForward Fan Fiction - These Things**

SYNOPSIS: Sergio Aucin, a Russian hitman finds himself shoot and grasping for life. Written in noir style.

Cold air stings when it's flowing through bullet-riddled ribs. Sergio forced a palm into his chest, failing to keep his inky blood from escaping.

The bulky Russian could feel his lungs fill slowly, breathing in a thick metallic mist. His father had always told him his days were number. Today his unit of count switched from years to minutes.

The glossy glimmer of a Desert Eagle swung suddenly over Sergio. Thick, hairy hands held the grip firmly, the creature's index finder still tapping the trigger guard.

"We allow ourselves to believe that the moon is free, dangling in mid-air, completely uncontrollable." The gunman's voice was phlegmatic, eerie. "But there is a distinct order, a path by which it must follow. Always orbiting. Always following."

Sergio released his hand from it's clasp against his chest, aware that the blood wouldn't escape as it was pooling into the reservoir which was his left lung. Placing both hands firmly on the ground, Sergio forced himself into a sitting position.

The gunman took a step closer, pushing the warm barrel of the gun into Sergio's forehead. As the gunman drew the hammer back, "Don't stress over Saba. I'll be taking good care of she."

As the deafening bullet exited the chamber, Sergio leapt awake. Safely in bed, his prospected death was nothing more than a dream.

Sergio laid back down, nestling himself under the heavy comforter. Bad dreams were nothing new to Sergio. Neither was being shot.

A lifetime in the Russian Mafia had given him more than a handful of scars. The four inch slash across his back was when his best friend, Vlad caught him sleeping with Vlad's wife. Sergio learned his lesson - make sure your mistress is on top.

Sergio also prompted his five bullet wounds to offset his missing five collective digits. Left pinky, left middle finger and three toes on his right foot. Rarely did Sergio run, which is why he was the most meticulous hitman within the Solntsevskaya bratva.

It wasn't until the morning when Vlad's phone call woke Sergio that he had realized that his awful nightmare was much worse; it was a vision of the future.

Over his morning vodka Sergio pondered his vision. Most people would wonder why they had been shot or who their killer is, but Sergio was curious about one thing: _Who is Saba_?

Sergio was always aware that his days were number, but now he knew the exact tally.


	4. The Word Game

**The Word Game  
**

The dark and lonely ninth story home of Spencer awaited him. He couldn't wait to leave the compact two bedroom which he has called "home" for 20 years.

Three years ago his son left to college with no plans on returning to New York. Shortly after that Spencer's wife, Julliana left him for an orderly from Royster. The embarrassment that followed caused Spencer to take two weeks of vacation in hopes that his mental patients would forget about his tragic event.

Spencer's life was one of habit. Every morning he would buy the newspaper but have no chance to read it until he had gotten home that night. His days were filled with patients complaining of the previous nights alien abduction, ghost encounter, or general horrific nightmare.

With nearly all his patients been "cured" by the blackout, Spencer found himself reading each and every word of the newspaper, engrossing himself into the lives of Nancy Pelosi, Alex Rodriguez and Lindsey Lohan.

Bored with the usual television, Spencer turned his hand at the People sudoku and crossword puzzles. Ever since he was a child, Spencer had loved puzzles of all sorts. Every Christmas his parents would buy him a puzzle book, which he would nearly completely finish by the end of winter break from school.

As Spencer flipped casually through the magazine, making his way to the back where the puzzle section is located, he came across something peculiar; there was no page 36. It wasn't missing or ripped out accidentally, there simply was no page 36, nor it's related side, 35.

"Mistakes happen," Spencer thought to himself. That was until he noticed the last word on page 37 - "blackout."

Spencer began flipping through the pages, one by one, to find a sentence being formulated, as the last word on every odd numbered page created a sentence. "blackout will occur stay safe meet thereafter griffith park."

What were the odds? Nothing more than a coincidence? What a cruel joke People Magazine was playing in the aftermath of the world's worst catastrophe.

Spencer remembered an issue of Rolling Stone doing a similar thing in promotion of an upcoming Conspiracy album. Playboy also created a few games in an issue when they interviewed a former CIA operative.

But this was all together different. Spencer closed the magazine and tossed it onto his coffee table, taking a brief moment to ponder his finding.

However, his conspiracy theories came to quick start when he noticed the date of the magazine, September 26th.


	5. Midnight Lamp

The roller coaster of peaks in the Angeles National Forest glowed softly from a distance. Once brimmed with Douglas-fir, Pine and Walnut tree s, burnt stumps and jagged rocks now made up the vast wasteland.

On a bluff over looking a scortched chasm, Jacob held a sleeve of his sweatshirt over his mouth. Minute dust and ash were the air, clogging the breaths of Jacob and his compatriots.

A whimper of a flame kicked up at the feet of the trio. The stranger to Jacob s left casually held a half-smoked cigarette over the flame in attempt of relighting the stick.

Not too far away on the crest of a hill laid a small cabin-like home. The simple house had a window-less wooden door center on the front wall. A pair of windows flanked the door, each with a small planter box adhered to it s frame.

Jacob felt focused, intensely staring at the lodge. Flames grew closer to the cabin, crawling along the dirt pathway to the entryway.

As the blaze reached the wooden steps, the brittle porch got fire quickly. Moving fiercely up the corner supports which held the awning in place. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Jacob had the sneaking feeling that he was to blame for the massive fire. In the place of regret or remorse, the sense of relief filled him.

To Jacob s right was his best friend from back home in New York. Tony shared the same complacent glaze as Jacob and their friendly stranger. The reflection of the cabin shown in Tony s eyes momentarily until Jacob caught a glimpse of something moving.

Jacob spun his head quickly, fixing his eyes back on the cabin. Hidden behind the soot-covered windows, a shadowy figure floated into view, disappearing as quickly as it was first seen. The feeling of relief quickly dropped from Jacob s being.

Shooting out of his deep sleep, sweat poured from Jacob s forehead. Yet again the vision had crept into his dreams. A bitter remembrance of not only the possibility of being a murdered, but also of the identical time at which Tony became a vegetable.

Laying feet away was Tony, connected to a dozen different I.V. and respirator contraptions. The hospital room had been a resting place for Tony and Jacob since the blackouts, and it seemed neither had rested well since.

As a nurse passed the open door, Jacob jumped to his feet, eager to have some human interaction. Playing cards with Tony had become quite unchallenging after the hundredth win.

Excuse me, Mary-Anne, Jacob shouted knowing full well that the nurse wouldn t break gate easily. Nurse, please, Jacob pleaded, pulling gently on Mary-Anne s wrist to stop her.

What? the serious nurse barked back.

I was wondering how Tony s doing.

Mary-Anne tilted her head forward, looking over her reading glasses, He s in a coma.

Has there been any progress? Should I be reading to him or something? Jacob rambled on, hoping to keep the awful conversation going as long as possible. I don t know if he s read a book since high school, but I could probably get a Playboy and describe the pictures to him.

Your mother would be so proud of you both.

Oh, we re not brothers.

Well, in that case... Mary-Anne dreaded finishing the meeting so she quickly turned and attempted an escape.

Doctor Benford hasn t been around in almost a week. Do you think she ll be making rounds any time soon?

The nurse stopped and looked genuinely into Jacob s eyes. Son, we ve got a lot of patients. We re doing our best, okay?

Jacob nodded sheepishly and allowed Mary-Anne to retreat but not before she catches a whiff of him, You know there s a shower in the room, right? With a chuckle she s off.

After his first shower in over a week, Jacob settled back into his usual resting spot. Reaching for the nearby hospital-issue telephone, Jacob figured it was as good a time as any to speak to his Father. Perhaps the blackout would give them something to talk about for the first time in nearly four years. 


End file.
